Introduction
After a long wait, the Oppo Find X3 series is here - this new line of smartphones, from Chinese company Oppo, is set to rival the Samsung Galaxy S21 line and Xiaomi Mi 11. There are four devices as part of this new line - the vanilla Find X3, Find X3 Pro, X3 Neo, and X3 Lite. The Oppo Find X3 Pro is Oppo’s most premium flagship smartphone of 2021, bringing brand-new features, and it is also a successor to the Find X2 Pro from 2020. With access to the Snapdragon 888, improved cameras, and a striking design, the Oppo Find X3 Pro is a proper high-end phone that makes few compromises to take on the best Apple and Samsung have to offer.
Price and release date
The OPPO Find X3 Pro was announced on March 11, 2021, with a release date of April 14 in the UK and Europe. The phone costs £1,099 (which converts to roughly $1,500), and that makes it one of the priciest smartphones we’ve seen recently. That’s for a phone with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The iPhone 12 Pro Max starts at $1,099 / £1,099, and the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra at $1,199 / £1,149, so the Oppo Find X3 Pro sits in the ‘expensive super-phone’ category.
Design and display
Oppo Find X3 Pro comes with a curved glass back, which has an iPhone-like triangular camera setup. According to the company, “this curved-glass rear design is an engineering marvel, and it does feel pretty nice.” The phone weighs 193g, and it measures 163.6 x 74.0 x 8.26mm. It’s also got IP68 protection, so it’s dustproof and waterproof. On the right side of the phone is a power button, while the volume rocker is on the left edge. The handset has a USB-C port, but there is no 3.5mm headphone jack. It also has a screen that curves at the edges (as with most premium phones).
As for the display, Oppo Find X3 Pro flaunts a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel with a QHD+ (or 3216 x 1440) resolution and 1300 nits max brightness. We found it looked great, with punchy colors and top contrast. The first improvement is the dynamic refresh rate thanks to an LTPO panel, meaning the display can drop from 120Hz to 5Hz when a high refresh rate isn’t needed. That beats the LTPO panel in the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which can only drop down to 10Hz. The second upgrade is support for 10-bit color depth, meaning the X3 Pro’s display can showcase a billion colors. In its default “Vivid” mode, the X3 Pro’s display covers 172.6% of the sRGB and 122.3% of the DCI-P3 color gamuts.
Front and rear cameras
The Oppo Find X3 Pro comes with four rear cameras: a 50MP f/1.8 main, a 50MP f/1.8 ultra-wide, a 13MP f/2.4 telephoto, and a 3MP f/3.0 microlens. There’s also a 32MP f/2.4 selfie camera on the front. As per the camera specs, the main and ultra-wide cameras both use the same sensor, made especially by Sony for Oppo. Night mode on the Oppo Find X3 Pro worked well in some settings - in super-dark settings, it brightened up the subject while reducing the exposure of background lights. This telephoto lens supports 3x optical, 5x hybrid, or 20x digital zoom. The phone can record 4k videos at 60fps from rear camera and 1080p 30fps from the front camera, and both let you add a digital ‘bokeh’ effect to video. The phone also arrives with Film mode.
Software, processor, and battery
Like other 2021 flagship phones, the Find X3 Pro uses the Snapdragon 888 chipset, the best processor available to Android phones as of its release, promising fast performance speeds and battery optimizations. In terms of benchmarks, the Find X3 Pro delivered a single-core score of 934 and a multi-core score of 3,337 in Geekbench 5. You’re getting 12GB of RAM with the phone as well as 256GB of storage; however, the storage isn’t expandable.
As for the software, it runs on ColorOS 11.2 based on Android 11 OS. Oppo has added features in the form of more customization options, notably the ability to tune the dark mode and the Always-On display to your taste. There's also a redesigned Oppo Relax app. There are also visual enhancements for video content provided by the Q1 Ultra Vision Engine. And finally, there’s the Game Space app that allows you to customize your gaming experience on the Find X3 Pro. With a 4,500 mAh battery, the Oppo Find X3 Pro has an extra 240 mAh over its predecessor. The phone’s battery can be topped up wirelessly, at up to 30W speeds, if using OPPO’s own wireless charger. It can also charge via OPPO’s 65W charging brick, which is included in the box.